How Our Marriage Survived Alcoholism

Kathy and Mike have been married for 30 years, but it hasn't always been easy.

Kathy is 55 and Mike is 56. They met in high school and dated for 10 years, they've now been married for 30 years.

When did you start talking about marriage?Mike: Well we always knew that we would get married when we were 20, 21. I think — well, we talked about getting married, but it became like we already were married in the sense of our family connections, and certain things that we did were so engrained to us that we might have gotten married even if we didn't like each other [laughs].

Kathy: I think what gave us the push — what got us going along with it — was I ended up having cancer. Ovarian cancer. We had always talked, and after that my doctor said, "Well, if you're going to have a family, you better get started now."

That must've been so scary. You were 24?Kathy: Yeah, 24.Mike: Kathy really, really wanted to have children. Her dad came from a family of six kids. My mom was an only child, but both my grandparents on that side of the family had huge families. My grandmother was a twin, and she had another seven brothers and sisters. And then my grandfather had six or seven brothers. So generationally there were big families.

Thankfully, UCSC medical center is one of the top medical centers, and she ended up with intern who's now very accomplished in cancer and surgery. He brought things down to our level. And next thing we know we had three beautiful kids and she was healthy. So it ended up working out very well. It could've ended up a lot worse.

What's changed after being married for 30 years?Kathy: I think you get more tolerant. You try not to let them bug you, because otherwise … I don't know.Mike: I think you realize you're not going to change them. You tend to look at the reasons that you get along and why you got married to begin with, and that doesn't change. The stuff that pissed you off or bugged you aren't going to go away, and it's not that big of a deal anymore. I just have to accept the fact that she's going to do what she wants.Kathy: I like to have puddles. Sometimes things grow into puddles, like papers. And he'd just run around and see those stacks.Mike: It's a metaphor for not being organized. If you're just going to let it stack, it means you haven't dealt with it! You're procrastinating.Kathy: Anyway, yeah. I like my piles just the way they are. I like to make lists. But sometimes you just got to have a lot of lists going.Mike: I'm fine with lists! But they need to be short and manageable. And if there's still a list on the desk two weeks from now it wasn't worth doing.Kathy: Anyway, now we've had a fight. Our first fight!Mike: [To Jane] See! It's all your fault.

Your marriage seems so happy and well-balanced. Has it ever been hard to keep it that way? You've been married 30 years.Mike: We've never had anything that has made us put the marriage to rest. The hardest thing was when I quit drinking. I grew up in an environment where drugs and alcohol were part of it. It ended up killing my brother, and my mom also had alcoholism. So at 42 or so I stopped. So I've been sober for the most part since then.

Your brother died from alcoholism? Mike: Yeah. He was literally the drinking champion in San Diego, and people would bet on him and all of that. But what killed him eventually — and we knew something was going to happen — was my mom had died and he got her estate and sold it, and got some cash, which is a problem with someone who has alcohol and drug problems. He throttled out of control, and he was killed in a car accident. The toxicology report found heroine and his alcohol content level was 0.25, which is above the limit. It was devastating.

So going back to your questions, everyone knew it was a problem in our family. So you know if I try to take the pain and agony of all those things that went on and drink, at some point I was holding back a lot of emotions and I was not physically recovering. And my kids were old enough to recognize what was going on, and you just realize at some point. I realized this was a cycle and I've got to break it, and I think that was the biggest step in our marriage.

Kathy, do you remember feeling a relief when he came to you and said, "OK, I'm going to change?"Kathy: It was good. I get that it was this giant change, but I wasn't in a hurry.Mike: It wasn't easy. There are certain personality traits that come out with alcohol, so you could be the sober asshole — taking the alcohol out doesn't make those things go away, and you have to live with it.

So it didn't all of the sudden make me a great person. My job at the time involved a lot of drinking. You'd be sitting in a meeting and they'd expect you to drink with them out of mutual respect. It was very common in Asia. And even your boss, you'll have to show your loyalty by doing it. And I'm not always going to.

She still has to put up with that. But when my personality changes, that's not her problem, it's mine. To be completely honest, I know in the back in my mind that if I could drink I still would. I was a super successful drunk. Where I got today, a lot of that time was spent being an alcoholic. But that's probably the biggest problem we've had in our marriage.

The typical thing that happens in Asia here — with the guys that I work with — is that they come over here and end up getting a divorce because they meet a Filipino or Thai girlfriend or wife, and they just blow off their wives. The biggest risk over here for most people is that the divorce rate is very high. It's just the culture.

And that's never come in your marriage?Both: No.

So what are you guys most looking forward to in your marriage?Kathy: Retirement.Mike: To do what we're doing now but to not be gone … to be somewhere closer. You know I travel a lot and we're based out of Singapore and it's [a] high cost of living.

I've actually gotten that advice before — that you should take as many trips as you can before one of you is hobbling around.Mike: Yeah, that's exactly it! We've taken this attitude that we're going to travel and see stuff. So we'll just keep doing this but we won't do it because we need the income. It's forced a change in lifestyle because we'll have to look cheaper and can't spend it in very nice places, but I want to be [in] a nice place without spending too much.

Do you have any advice for people thinking about marriage?Kathy: Marry your friend. Your best friend.Mike: But you also can't be so similar that you'll get bored. You have to have some differences. But people that are so different won't get along.Kathy: Be a couple but still be two individuals. Don't be connected at the hip. Just still be yourself but there for each other.

What is your favorite thing about the other person?Kathy: My favorite thing? His personality.Mike: The heart she has.Kathy: Really?Mike: Yeah, it makes me proud! She truly does care. And not in a superficial way. We'll watch a movie and she'll start crying and it's not because she's a sentimentalist, it's because she sees something and relates it to something she knows, so she's sad. Now we're both teary-eyed.

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